The present invention relates to a ballet shoe having a sound deadening toe portion.
A ballet shoe or ballet slipper includes a shank extending beneath the wearer's sole. The shank includes a toe portion. The shoe includes a toe box above the toe portion of the shank which also covers the front part of the wearer's foot. The body of the ballet shoe, including its toe box, is defined by and is covered with a number of layers of flexible fabric material, including a silk or satin, or the like exterior layer, a cotton, or the like interior foot liner and intermediate fabric layers material, comprising generally from three to five layers.
A ballet shoe has a stiff, hard front. In some shoes, this is formed of appropriately shaped wood or stiff plastic. In other shoes, including preferably those disclosed here, the entire front portion is formed of layers of fabric, which are stiffened through having a sufficient number of fabric layers and through the use of glue layers between adjacent fabric layers.
Whether the front of the shoe is a covered over stiff unit or is a plurality of glued together fabric layers, the fabric covering material over the top of the front portion of the shoe and extending onto the bottom of the ballet shoe is wrapped around the front end of the shoe and is drawn down beneath the front end of the bottom surface of the shank. At the front end at the underside of the shank, the material layers are pleated and fastened to the underside of the shank. An outer sole is then placed over the bottom of the shank and over the periphery of the pleated material layers.
When a dancer moves, that is walks, runs, hops, jumps and bangs the foot that is wearing the ballet shoe, noise is generated by the front end of the toe portion and by the underside of the shoe shank forward of the outer sole banging against the floor.
It is presently known to eliminate noise generated by banging of the underside of the front portion of the shank, which is covered by the pleats, by placement of a pad of cushioning material above the pleats just at the bottom forward end of the shank. However, noise may still be generated by the front of the toe portion banging the floor and sometimes by the sides of the toe portion banging the floor.